I got a new computer at work on Monday, so I’ve been trying to get it up to speed. Mostly copying files from the old computer to the new one and installing software. I’m a big fan of QuickTime as opposed to the Windows Media Player. It has nothing to do with Apple versus Microsoft. I just think the interface for QuickTime is so much cleaner and friendlier. So of course I went to the Apple site and downloaded the latest version. Surprisingly it came with iTunes. Not really a problem.
Today I found a rogue MP3 wandering aimlessly in the mess of files. So I double-click it to figure out what it was. iTunes comes up and plays the song. But first it scans my hard drive for every other music file it can find. Wow, that many.
I play a few in the privacy of my own office. Then curiosity gets me while playing, Heaven, and I press the arrow next to the artist’s name. Suddenly I’m in the iTunes music store, looking at every song by DJ Sammy. (For the record, I own the CD.) He has some new ones and I click for a thirty second snippet. I like it, I’ll buy it when I get home. A quick look at the mixes people have made shows some other songs that I’ve been wanting to get. Score. I’ll do a more intensive browse at home and buy several songs.
When I get home, none of those songs are available. DJ Sammy has apparently never released any music.
The problem is that because I work for an American company, my computer thinks it is located in Washington state. So the computer was browsing the American iTunes store. Not the Canadian one.
This annoys me. A lot of songs I want are out of my grasp, and I don’t know why. I want to give these people money, why won’t they take it?
Technically I could buy the songs at work and then take them home, but that doesn’t feel ethical. And I don’t want to pay the higher US prices.